


Soldier's Homecoming

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/M, Military, War Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-29
Updated: 2009-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade comes home to a wife who understands</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldier's Homecoming

Slade still flinches from the quiet. It's been two weeks since he got home, but the lack of noise leaves him twitchy. Addie never chides him over it, though, just as she doesn't protest his immediate reaction to their son's cries for attention. He's trained to deal with noises, trained to keep an ever wary alertness in the quiet, and she gets that.

There are many moments in those weeks that she reminds herself she chose to be the wife, the mother, to give up her vaunted position as one of the few elite women of the Army. She doesn't so much regret it, as miss the other side of who she was, especially when she watches her husband doing his training, or working on the handgun he's been restoring to pristine condition for a hobby.

He's taking to the life on base with equanimity, or trying to. She sees the tiger under his skin, the one that has been trained in two wars and several shadow operations to thrive on violence, adrenaline, and skill. She knows, from the minute the phone rings with the older Brit's voice on the other end, that Slade won't hold back from going.

He wouldn't be the man she loves if he did. It doesn't stop her from savoring the sight of him lying on his back on the floor as they watch _The Tonight Show_ together, Grant sprawled out asleep on his chest and the reason why Slade hasn't joined her on the couch. Her son, their son, with his baby curls, and a fist jammed up against his mouth, smacking now and then on the thumb couldn't be a better anodyne for the soldier if he tried.

Johnny Carson makes a poke at President Johnson's advisors, and Addie tenses, waiting to see which way Slade's humor takes it. He's a man that fights for his country, but she's already seen that the war is leaving a stain on that. Private conversations with Wintergreen in the past have told her that for as detached as he can be in combat, he still pays the human toll in conscience on certain actions.

A quiet snort is Slade's only reply, one that makes Grant shift a little and when the commercials come on, the large man slides gracefully to his feet, carrying their son to bed. Addie decides that the Tonight Show is nowhere near as important as her husband, rising and turning off the television and lights in the house. By the time she's at the bedroom, so is he, with that oh so confident look on his face that he knew her thoughts on the matter already.

"Wintergreen's persuaded the brass to field an allied team," he tells her, drawing her in against his body just inside their door. "He wants me there."

"He's not a stupid man." Addie starts sliding her hands under his shirt. "How soon?"

"He's still securing the team. Another week before I leave," Slade answers, before dipping down to kiss her solidly.

She presses into that kiss, fingers sliding over his hard-cut muscles. She feels the scars, the thin lines of the engagements he's known since he was a sixteen year old in Korea. As she moves her hands around to his back, she smiles; those lines are all her, all the passion they share, and the hiss of his breath is reward enough for her.

It's her, not him, that pushes things back toward the bed. He lets her move the pace, lets her decide that his shirt off and his pants shoved down, their coarse material against the backs of her thighs, is what she wants. She's the one that chooses when to take him, wearing nothing, but him in the remnants of his uniform, a union of two fierce warriors. She will see him off again, face the waiting of a dependent one more time, but she's got nothing but pride for him, pride and passion as he drives deep within her like this.

After, when he's fallen asleep, she lays there beside him, and half wishes she was going with him. Grant is her responsibility, though, and she won't pass off the raising of her child to taste the action again. She'll just have to wait for Slade's return again, and savor the tales he brings to her.

One day, though, they'll carve a life that lets them both be what they should be.


End file.
